World News - Gunmen kill police in Afghanistan & US soldier was killed

Six policemen have been killed by suspected Taleban insurgents in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. The gunmen attacked the police post in the Maiwand district in the early hours of Friday, a police official said. In a separate incident, a US soldier was killed and an Afghan soldier wounded when their patrol came under attack in central Uruzghan province. Militants, often claiming to be members of the Taleban, have stepped up attacks in recent months. More than 3,000 British troops are being deployed to southern Afghanistan and Dutch troops are set to move into Uruzghan province in coming months, as Nato-led peacekeeping forces try to impose control over the volatile south. The bodies of four of the six policemen killed in Kandahar were burned, ... http://news.bbc.co.uk

Russia must stop any arms deals with Iran and other nations must bar the sale of dual-use technologies to Tehran to put pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear program, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. "It's time for countries to use their leverage against Iran," said senior State Department official Nicholas Burns, adding: "We think its very important that countries like Russia freeze any arms sales planned for Iran." Washington wants Moscow to cancel the planned sale to Iran of Tor tactical surface-to-air missiles. Moscow and Tehran say they are for defensive purposes. "We hope and we trust that that deal will not go forward," said Burns of the Tor deal. We can’t have Russia competing with us on Arms sales. Only we can sell Arms to anyone and we are the worlds biggest Arms dealer. We have sold or given Arms to the worlds worst Dictators but it always made some favored American Arms Company Money and Politicians received very lucrative Kickbacks...http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060421/ts_nm/nuclear_iran_usa_dc

A defense contractor seeking help from Rep. Katherine Harris for $10 million in federal money last year took her to one of Washington's most exclusive restaurants, where he paid for a meal that may have cost as much as $2,800 and offered to sponsor a campaign fundraiser for her.Mitchell Wade, who pleaded guilty this year to bribing a California congressman, spent $2,800 on wine and food, said Ed Rollins, former chief political strategist for Harris in her campaign for the U.S. Senate. In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel this week, Harris R-Longboat Key, said it was "news to me" that the total bill had been that expensive.Rollins said he and Harris discussed the meal and its cost early this year after Wade, the central figure in a congressional bribery scandal, admitted giving kickbacks to U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California....http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-harrisdinner04apr21,0,1466319.story

Web site operators posting sexually explicit information must place official government warning labels on their pages or risk being imprisoned for up to five years, the Bush administration proposed Thursday. A mandatory rating system will "prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images on the Internet," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said at an event in Alexandria, Va. The Bush administration's proposal would require commercial Web sites to place "marks and notices" to be devised by the Federal Trade Commission on each sexually explicit page. The definition of sexually explicit broadly covers depictions of everything from sexual intercourse and masturbation to "sadistic abuse" and close-ups of fully clothed genital regions. To some this will sound good, but like most of the excuises “it’s for the children” its purpose is to control the internet and “it’s for the children" always seems to work. A little Censorship is like being a little Pregnant...http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6063554.html

In West Germany they were closing children's playgrounds and distributing iodine tablets. But in communist East Germany life after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster carried on as normal at least officially. The government simply censored fear. For East German racing cyclist Olaf Ludwig, winning the International Peace Race considered the East Bloc's "Tour de France" was a bizarre experience. It started in the Ukrainian capital Kiev on May 7, 1986, 11 days after the accident and 100 kilometers from Chernobyl, and he recalls being startled as he raced past lines of trucks being checked with Geiger counters. The many cancellations by Western teams also came as a surprise to him. "They told us there'd been an accident but that it was far away and that we would be fine," said the current director of the Team Telekom racing outfit. "They" refers to the high sports and party officials of East Germany who accompanied their team in order to "calm down people who were becoming very unsettled," ...http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,412211,00.html

Just about every American president since Richard M. Nixon has confronted the fact that his influence over China is far more limited than he once hoped.WASHINGTON, April 20 - President Bush is now facing that reality midway through his second term, at a moment when the Chinese clearly sense his weakness.Mr. Bush's predicament was on display during his encounters on Thursday with President Hu Jintao, in which Mr. Bush made it clear that the status quo was unacceptable - that America's $200 billion annual trade deficit is "unsustainable," that Iran needs to face sanctions to force it to halt its nuclear program, and that China must "use its considerable influence" to make sure North Korea is disarmed.Mr. Hu acknowledged that each of those issues needed attention, but deflected every effort to commit China to concrete action. It was the fifth time that the two men have met in the past year. The mood was friendly, yet the tension was unmistakable....http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,412292,00.html